1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the detection and localization of damage to a material. More specifically, the invention is a system that can be used to detect and localize damage to a material while simultaneously providing thermal protection characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of garments and structures are made from specialty fabrics designed to withstand harsh environmental conditions. For example, the space industry fabricates space suits, space and surface habitats, airlocks, and a variety of inflatable structures from multi-layered fabrics designed to withstand a certain amount of impacts and provide thermal protection. Similarly, earth-based protective clothing (e.g., “HazMat” suits) and some earth-based temporary structures (e.g., military structures) are fabricated with damage-resistant and thermally protective multi-layer fabrics. However, all multi-layer fabrics can be damaged (e.g., penetrated, punctured, cut, torn, etc.) if the right amount of force is applied, if the fabric is breached by a sharp or pointed implement, or if the fabric receives an impact from a high velocity object such as a micrometeorite. While large damages are readily noticed, small damages can easily be unrecognizable. However, when occupant(s) of a slightly damaged structure or clothing are in a harsh environment (e.g., space, toxic gas, etc.), even small scale (i.e., unrecognized) damages to a protective structure or clothing can cause serious injury or death. Furthermore, even if only outer layers experience damage while internal layers are not damaged, it is still advantageous to identify damage to outer layers. Current damage detection methods known in the art require electrical sensors/circuits, the integrity of which must be maintained for damage detection. However, the failure probability of these circuits increases proportionally to the number of sensors used.